Category: CentOS

DisplayLink, Silicon Motion USB displays and XR glasses

slaanesh Leave a comment

The multimedia repository now contains drivers for three kinds of USB “displays” that need more than what the standard kernel packages provides out of the box:

All of them are packaged so the installation is pretty straightforward: plug in the device and the required service starts by itself presenting you additional monitors you can configure.

DisplayLink

The displaylink package, even though available for years now, adds support for docking stations, USB monitors and USB adapters built on the DisplayLink DL-6xxx, DL-5xxx, DL-41xx and DL-3xxx chipsets. The driver is made of a proprietary user space service (DisplayLinkManager) and the open source EVDI kernel module, which creates the virtual outputs the service drives.

A udev rule starts displaylink.service when a DisplayLink device is plugged in and stops it when it is removed, so the service never runs when it is not needed. The package also disables USB 3 link power management on the port the adapter is connected to, as the upstream installer does (theoretically is only for USB ethernet network interfaces, but you never know). On Fedora and EL 9, the xorg-x11-displaylink subpackage is installed automatically if you also have the X.org server as it specifies Supplements: xorg-x11-server-Xorg.

Availability:

The package is available for Fedora 43+ and EL 9/10, on x86_64 and aarch64.

Silicon Motion USB displays

The smiusbdisplay package does the same for docking stations, USB monitors and USB adapters built on the Silicon Motion SM76x and SM77x USB display controllers. It also uses the same EVDI kernel module, together with the proprietary Silicon Motion user space service.

Again, a udev rule starts and stops smiusbdisplay.service when an adapter is plugged in or removed. Silicon Motion also makes USB storage controllers with the same vendor ID, so the rule matches only the display adapters.

The package is available for Fedora 43+ and EL 10 on x86_64 and aarch64. For EL 9 is available only for x86_64.

The EVDI kernel module

Both packages require the EVDI kernel module, which after a merge request I did in June, should be more robust in probing what features and symbols are available in each kernel, including RHEL/CentOS backports.

The kernel module pacakges are available in three flavors, as usual. Pick one:

  • akmod-evdi: the module is rebuilt automatically on your system for every new kernel. Available on Fedora and EL.
  • dkms-evdi: the same, using DKMS instead of akmods. Available on Fedora and EL.
  • kmod-evdi: a precompiled module that uses the stable kernel ABI of RHEL, so nothing needs to be compiled when the kernel is updated. EL only.

XR glasses

XR glasses like the VITURE, XREAL, Rokid and TCL/RayNeo models are connected through USB-C and already work as a normal external monitor with no additional software. What is missing is head tracking, which is needed to turn them into a virtual desktop with screens anchored in space around you. This is now provided by two new packages:

  • xr-driver (XRLinuxDriver): the user space driver that reads the head tracking data from the glasses. It can also use it directly as mouse or joystick input.
  • breezy-desktop (Breezy Desktop): the virtual desktop itself.
    • Install breezy-desktop-gnome for the GNOME Shell extension and its control panel.
    • Install breezy-desktop-kwin for the KDE Plasma effect and its settings module.

Supported glasses, at the moment of wriing:

BrandModels
VITUREOne, One Lite, Pro XR, Luma, Luma Pro, Luma Ultra, Beast, Pro 2 XR
XREALAir, Air 2, Air 2 Pro, Air 2 Ultra, One, One Pro, 1S, xbx a01+
RokidMax, Air
TCL/RayNeoNXTWEAR S/S+, Air 2, 2s, 3s/Pro

XREAL glasses are supported through an open source implementation of their protocol. VITURE, Rokid and TCL/RayNeo glasses are supported through the proprietary SDKs of the respective vendors, which are included in the xr-driver package; each of them has its own license. Rokid and TCL/RayNeo glasses are supported only on x86_64. The proprietary libraries of the vendor specific Linux SDKs are not available for download outside of the XRLinuxDriver repository.

The driver runs as a systemd user service. A udev rule starts it in your session as soon as you plug in the glasses, so there is no need to enable it. If you prefer to keep it always running, enable it with:

systemctl --user enable --now xr-driver

On GNOME, an extensions is required; so after installation of the package log out and log back in. After GNOME Shell has picked up the new extension, you can then open “Breezy Desktop” from the application menu. On KDE Plasma, open “Breezy Desktop” from the application menu to configure the effect.

Please note that the virtual desktop features of Breezy Desktop are not free. They come with a 2 month free trial, which is activated automatically the first time the driver goes online. After that, you need a Productivity license from the author; the Pro plan is required for the position tracking (6DoF) of glasses like the VITURE Luma Ultra. A free Basic license is available to some groups of people for non-commercial use. All the details are in the Breezy Desktop README.

The packages are available for Fedora 44+ and EL 10, on x86_64 and aarch64. I tested them on a laptop with VITURE Luma Ultra glasses connected to a USB-C port that is connected directly to an NVIDIA GPU in an optimus laptop. The GPU started, and the extra monitor appeared.

Installation

Add the multimedia repository on Fedora:

dnf config-manager addrepo --from-repofile=https://negativo17.org/repos/fedora-multimedia.repo

Or on EL:

dnf config-manager --add-repo=https://negativo17.org/repos/epel-multimedia.repo

Then install what you need, for example:

dnf install displaylink dkms-evdi
dnf install smiusbdisplay dkms-evdi
dnf install breezy-desktop-gnome
dnf install breezy-desktop-kwin

The Breezy Desktop packages pull in xr-driver automatically. On EL 10, the KDE Plasma, akmods and DKMS packages come from EPEL, so make sure it is enabled if you want to use breezy-desktop-kwin.

All of these appear of course in GNOME Software and are suggested to be installed in case you have the matching USB IDs on the system (the hardware is plugged in).

Changes to the NVIDIA driver packages

slaanesh Leave a comment

The same set of changes described here have also been applied in the NVIDIA driver packages published by NVIDIA as part of the CUDA repositories. The changes will land in the 620 branch releases.

The same set of changes will land at the same time in the official driver installation guide.

DNF 5 reboot suggestion

The kernel module and the user space libraries must always be the same version, so after a driver update you really want to reboot. With DNF 4 on RHEL/EL 8 to 10, the packages have been adding themselves to the needs-restarting DNF plugin configuration for a while. DNF 5 did not have an equivalent until recently, but luckily my merge request to DNF 5 got merged without issues so we now have a configurable list of packages that can trigger the notification.

The snippets reside in /usr/share/dnf5/suggest-reboot.d/ and are available in Fedora (and eventually RHEL 11); after an update to the driver, “dnf5 needs-restarting” and the reboot hint at the end of the transaction tell you that a reboot is needed, like for a kernel update. This is also available in the 580 branch driver packages, the LTS driver that still supports older GPUs.

NVIDIA drivers on a system without an NVIDIA GPU

The NVIDIA driver packages can now be installed on any system, whether or not it has an NVIDIA GPU. That includes OS images that end up on very different hardware, and machines that only get an NVIDIA GPU later in their life, for example a laptop that gets plugged into a Thunderbolt dock or eGPU enclosure with an NVIDIA card inside.

Until now the packages assumed that if you installed them, you had the hardware. On a system without an NVIDIA GPU you would get services that fail at every boot, an autostart entry that complains at every login, and so on. None of it was harmful, but it made the driver a bad fit for generic images. Everything that needs the GPU now stays “dormant” and waits for the GPU to appear in the system.

Most of the changes are variations on the work done for Anatase (https://anatase.org/). Thanks to Antheas Kapenekakis for figuring it all out.

Kernel modules

The kernel modules are built as usual, through akmods (akmod-nvidia) or DKMS (dkms-nvidia), whether or not a GPU is present. They are not included in the initrd, and they are only loaded when the kernel finds a matching PCI device through its modalias. On a system without an NVIDIA GPU they just sit on disk. When a GPU appears, even after boot, udev loads the driver.

On top of the open kernel modules, nvidia-kmod and dkms-nvidia now carry two extra patches from Anatase:

  • Tunneled PCIe link speed. A GPU attached over Thunderbolt or USB4 sits behind a tunneled PCIe link, and the link often does not train to the best speed the tunnel supports. With this patch, whenever such a GPU is in use (at startup, and every time it wakes up from runtime power management), the driver stops the hardware from changing the link speed on its own at both ends of the link. It then asks the kernel’s PCI core to train the link once at the maximum speed available, and gives control back to the hardware when the GPU goes idle again. It is only enabled for Thunderbolt-attached GPUs and on kernels that export pcie_set_target_speed(), so internal GPUs are not affected. This is what makes the “plug in a dock with an NVIDIA GPU” case perform properly and not just work.
  • CEC over DisplayPort to HDMI adapters. This one is not about GPU detection, but it is a nice addition: it exposes the DisplayPort AUX channel to the kernel’s DRM helpers, so HDMI-CEC works through DP-to-HDMI adapters that support it. For example, you can control the Steam interface with a remote or turn on the TV once your HTPC set powers on.

I’m trying to push both patches internally in NVIDIA, let’s see if we can get them in.

Auotostart of programs

Previously the packages shipped systemd presets that enabled nvidia-persistenced and nvidia-powerd. An enabled service starts at every boot, GPU or not. The presets are gone. Both packages now ship a udev rule that pulls in the service when an NVIDIA display controller (VGA or 3D class) is added to the system:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="pci", ATTR{vendor}=="0x10de", ATTR{class}=="0x030000|0x030200", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}+="nvidia-persistenced.service"

On a system without an NVIDIA GPU the services never start. On a system with one they start at boot as before. When a GPU is hot-plugged, they start the moment it appears. There is nothing to enable or disable by hand.

nvidia-settings installs an autostart entry that restores the saved settings at login with “nvidia-settings --load-config-only“. Without an NVIDIA GPU this just fails at every login. The entry now checks for the device first:

Exec=sh -c "[ -e /dev/nvidia0 ] && exec /usr/bin/nvidia-settings --load-config-only"

No GPU means no device node, so that covers nvidia-settings as well.

CUDA in unprivileged containers

CUDA also needs the /dev/nvidia-uvm and /dev/nvidia-uvm-tools device nodes. They are normally created on demand: the NVIDIA libraries call nvidia-modprobe, a setuid helper that loads the nvidia-uvm module and creates the nodes.

Unprivileged containers (rootless Podman, Toolbx, Distrobox) can not call setuid programs on the system, so CUDA fails even if the rest of the GPU is passed through correctly. This is the standard mechanism for most of the non open source libraries that are part of the driver to make sure the correct device nodes are created upon execution.

nvidia-kmod-common now does this in advance with a udev rule. When an NVIDIA GPU is added, it runs “nvidia-modprobe -u -c 0“, which loads nvidia-uvm and creates both nodes. The nodes are then already there to pass into containers.

Nvidia proprietary and open source kernel modules

slaanesh 6 Comments

With the latest bunch of updates to the Nvidia and Multimedia repositories, I’ve added the ability to switch to the two implementations of the kernel modules currently available in the Nvidia driver for Linux.

Since almost a year, the Nvidia driver ships with two different implementations of the kernel modules, one proprietary and one open source. The open source one as of drivers 545.x is now considered beta quality also for the workstations, so it seems a good moment to start shipping it.

The open source one is supposed to be the only one that will be kept in the future, but at the moment both are available and both differ in terms of functionality. You can read about the main differences in terms of functionality and what chips they support in the official documentation.

I did not want to introduce another variation of the kernel modules beside akmods, kABI and DKMS, this would have created even more confusion and lots of dependencies in the SPEC files for the variations. The new akmod and DKMS packages ship both sources (MIT/GPL and proprietary kernel modules) and allow you to switch between one or the other through a configuration file.

Considering that in the long run only the open source variant will remain, I wanted to make this as transparent as possible for the users. Basically, if you don’t care and just want something that works, nothing has changed for you.

The two sources get referenced as they are referenced inside the Nvidia run file, namely “kernel” for the original proprietary kernel modules and “kernel-open” for the new open source variation.

The following instructions show you how to switch between one implementation or the other.

DKMS

Check which version you have installed:

# modinfo -l nvidia
NVIDIA

Change the type of modules you want to use and trigger a rebuild and a reinstall:

# sed -i -e 's/kernel$/kernel-open/g' /etc/nvidia/kernel.conf
# dkms build -m nvidia/545.29.02 --force
# dkms install -m nvidia/545.29.02 --force

Now check again the license and you should see that it has changed to MIT/GPL:

# modinfo -l nvidia
Dual MIT/GPL
# reboot

To switch back, change the configuration again and then trigger the same process for rebuilding installing:

# sed -i -e 's/kernel-open$/kernel/g' /etc/nvidia/kernel.conf
# dkms build -m nvidia/545.29.02 --force
# dkms install -m nvidia/545.29.02 --force
# reboot

akmods

Check which version you have installed:

# modinfo -l nvidia
NVIDIA

Change the type of modules you want to use and trigger a rebuild and a reinstall:

# sed -i -e 's/kernel$/kernel-open/g' /etc/nvidia/kernel.conf
# akmods --rebuild

Now check again the license and you should see that it has changed to MIT/GPL:

# modinfo -l nvidia
Dual MIT/GPL
# reboot

To switch back, change the configuration again and then trigger the same process for rebuilding installing:

# sed -i -e 's/kernel-open$/kernel/g' /etc/nvidia/kernel.conf
# akmods --rebuild
# reboot

HandBrake FFmpeg, no more Nvidia 32 bit drivers

slaanesh 3 Comments

HandBrake has been updated again to track the master branch, as it now uses FFMpeg 4 and no longer libAV 12. This could probably lead to other improvements, like NVENC/CUDA support, more formats, etc.

Starting with the Nvidia drivers version 396.24 there will be no more 32 bit support, the driver will be 64 bit only. The 32 bit libraries are still included, so Steam and other applications will keep on being supported.

In a few days, the updated drivers will be pushed in the Fedora repositories, and at the same time I will also remove the i386 folder from the repositories. Some i386 packages will still be provided in the x86_64 folder, as it is now for Fedora 28 and CentOS/RHEL 7. The packages that will be kept, are mostly multilib library packages.

The same will happen to CentOS/EPEL 6 at the moment a new 64 bit only driver series will be nominated as “Long Lived”.

Also the Spotify repository has already no more i386 support, upstream stopped providing updated clients. Judging from the web server logs, there seems to be almost no one using an i686 Fedora in conjunction with the repositories hosted here.

CUDA 9.0, cuDNN 7.0 and Wayland support in Fedora 27

slaanesh 39 Comments

The Nvidia repository now contains packages for Fedora 27. This is with the release candidate of CUDA 9, and it contains also cuDNN at version 7.0, which is the only version supported with CUDA 9 at the moment of writing.

The updated cuDNN 7.0 library has been added also to the other branches, this means it will be automatically upgraded from version 6.0 to 7.0. If you still need one of the previous versions, just remove it and install one of the compatibility packages:

# dnf list cuda-cudnn*
Installed Packages
cuda-cudnn.x86_64                   1:7-1.fc26         @fedora-nvidia
Available Packages
cuda-cudnn-devel.x86_64             1:7-1.fc26         fedora-nvidia 
cuda-cudnn5.1.x86_64                1:5.1-2.fc26       fedora-nvidia 
cuda-cudnn5.1-devel.x86_64          1:5.1-2.fc26       fedora-nvidia 
cuda-cudnn6.0.x86_64                1:6.0-1.fc26       fedora-nvidia 
cuda-cudnn6.0-devel.x86_64          1:6.0-1.fc26       fedora-nvidia

CUDA 9 supports GCC 6.x and CLANG 3.9, so when it will be officially released, it will cover Fedora 25 and RHEL/CentOS compilers. With Fedora 27, there will be the usual need for a GCC compatibility package (like the compat-gcc53 package currently in the repository) as GCC is at version 7 and CLANG is at version 4.0.

I will try to provide a compat-gcc64 for Fedora 27+ at the time of the official CUDA 9 release.

Regarding the drivers, on Fedora 27 where Mutter 3.25+ is available, the modesetting part of the Nvidia drivers has been enabled by default, this means that at the login you can just select “GNOME” to run Gnome on Wayland. Please note that X 3D programs running on XWayland might not work properly.

CentOS 7.4 package rebases

slaanesh 5 Comments

As many have requested, I’ve enabled the updates for CentOS 7.4. As of this very moment, you need to enable the Continuous Release repository, which will get emptied when the final CentOS 7.4 images will be released. This means all the temporary packages I’ve put in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 repository are now mainline.

If you are on CentOS 7.3 please proceed as follows:

# yum clean all
# yum-config-manager --enable cr
# yum update

You can then disable the cr repository (if you want) once CentOS 7.4 is out.

If you are on RHEL 7.4, you need to remove the temporary repository:

# yum clean all
# rm -f /etc/yum.repos.d/rhel74-temp.repo
# yum update

All Gstreamer packages are now at 1.10 as well as some other updates that have been already pushed into the Fedora repositories, like x265, HandBrake, etc..

RHEL 7.4 multimedia packages and Skype repository removal

slaanesh 4 Comments

The upgrade path from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 to 7.4 is a bit of a pain if you have the multimedia repository configured. This is because I’m rebuilding a few components for an upgraded libwebp package and because a lot of stuff has been rebased to versions that are in Fedora. Judging by the logs, I see that most of the downloads come from CentOS systems, so I just decided to hold on some updates that are required for the various package rebases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4. So until also CentOS releases version 7.4, I can’t make everyone happy and something (like Gstreamer plugin updates) will be stuck with 7.3 versions. Hopefully the new CentOS release will come quickly enough.

Also, I decided to stop rebuilding the base packages to use a newer libwebp version. This really had very few benefits and just a lot of pain due to the huge amount of packages involved in both x86_64 and i686 variants. The amount of packages affected by this weigh at around 3 gb.

In RHEL 7.4 there are additional WebKit variants that also would require a rebuild. So, as of today, to update the packages from the EPEL 7 multimedia repository you should run this command:

rpm -e --nodeps GraphicsMagick && yum distro-sync && yum -y install GraphicsMagick

Hopefully you would get an output similar to this:

Dependencies Resolved

==============================================================================================
 Package                         Arch        Version                  Repository         Size
==============================================================================================
Updating:
 compat-ffmpeg-libs              x86_64      1:2.8.12-2.el7           epel-multimedia   5.6 M
 ffmpeg                          x86_64      1:3.3.3-2.el7            epel-multimedia   1.5 M
 ffmpeg-libs                     i686        1:3.3.3-2.el7            epel-multimedia   6.1 M
 ffmpeg-libs                     x86_64      1:3.3.3-2.el7            epel-multimedia   6.3 M
 gstreamer1-plugins-bad          x86_64      1:1.4.5-5.el7            epel-multimedia   1.8 M
 libavdevice                     x86_64      1:3.3.3-2.el7            epel-multimedia    63 k
Downgrading:
 leptonica                       i686        1.72-2.el7               epel-multimedia   881 k
 leptonica                       x86_64      1.72-2.el7               epel              928 k
 libwebp                         i686        0.3.0-3.el7              base              169 k
 libwebp                         x86_64      0.3.0-3.el7              base              170 k
 lz4                             x86_64      1.7.3-1.el7              epel               82 k
 python-pillow                   x86_64      2.0.0-19.gitd1c6db8.el7  base              438 k
 webkitgtk                       x86_64      2.4.9-1.el7              epel               12 M
 webkitgtk3                      x86_64      2.4.9-6.el7              base               11 M
Installing for dependencies:
 libwebp0.6                      i686        0.6.0-1.el7              epel-multimedia   255 k
 libwebp0.6                      x86_64      0.6.0-1.el7              epel-multimedia   250 k

Transaction Summary
==============================================================================================
Install               ( 2 Dependent packages)
Upgrade    6 Packages
Downgrade  8 Packages

Total download size: 47 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]:

Basically libwebp should come again from the main CentOS/RHEL channels and the libwebp0.6 package should come from the multimedia repository. All the packages which were rebuilt for the previous libwebp 0.5 update should become synced again to their proper versions.

If you don’t get this output, but still get some dependency errors you have to do some debugging. For example, ffmpeg-libs.i686 requires libssh.i686, but the version of libssh in CentOS extras is different from the one in EPEL (it really depends on what kind of packages you have installed and with which repositories enabled) so I’m providing here the same version that is in CentOS extras but in both variants.

Update 16th August 2017

If you get many qt5 errors during the transactions, keep in mind that RHEL 7.4 has been rebased massively, and everyone else (including EPEL) is catching up. As of today, if you have the following errors (trimmed down) in a Yum transaction:

Error: Package: gvfs-1.30.4-3.el7.x86_64 (rhel-x86_64-server-7)
Error: Package: qt5-qtwebkit-5.6.1-3.b889f46git.el7.x86_64 (epel)
Error: Package: qt5-qtquickcontrols2-5.6.1-2.el7.x86_64 (@epel)
Error: Package: qt5-qtquickcontrols2-5.6.1-2.el7.x86_64 (@epel)
Error: Package: GraphicsMagick-1.3.26-3.el7.x86_64 (@epel-multimedia)
Error: Package: kf5-kdeclarative-5.36.0-1.el7.x86_64 (epel)
Error: Package: qt5-qtquickcontrols2-5.6.1-2.el7.x86_64 (@epel)
Error: Package: qt5-qtwebkit-5.6.1-3.b889f46git.el7.x86_64 (epel)
Transaction check error:
  file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstopus.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-bad-1:1.4.5-5.el7.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-base-1.10.4-1.el7.x86_64

You can do the following. For this:

Error: Package: GraphicsMagick-1.3.26-3.el7.x86_64 (@epel-multimedia)

Do:

rpm -e --nodeps GraphicsMagick && yum -y install GraphicsMagick

All of the QT7KDE 5 stuff:

Error: Package: qt5-qtwebkit-5.6.1-3.b889f46git.el7.x86_64 (epel)
Error: Package: qt5-qtquickcontrols2-5.6.1-2.el7.x86_64 (@epel)
Error: Package: qt5-qtquickcontrols2-5.6.1-2.el7.x86_64 (@epel)
Error: Package: kf5-kdeclarative-5.36.0-1.el7.x86_64 (epel)

Are in EPEL testing updates, so:

yum --enablerepo=epel-testing update

These:

Error: Package: gvfs-1.30.4-3.el7.x86_64 (rhel-x86_64-server-7)Transaction check error:
  file /usr/lib64/gstreamer-1.0/libgstopus.so from install of gstreamer1-plugins-bad-1:1.4.5-5.el7.x86_64 conflicts with file from package gstreamer1-plugins-base-1.10.4-1.el7.x86_64

are some of the packages that are rebased in RHEL 7.4. I’ve created a temporary repository for those, it will disappear once CentOS 7.4 is released as the packages will be integrated in the main multimedia repository. You can install it through:

yum-config-manager \
  --add-repo=https://negativo17.org/repos/rhel74-temp/rhel74-temp.repo

With the above repository it is possible to install all the other multimedia packages.

Skype repository removal

Skype 4.3 is 32 bit only, is now obsolete and has been superseded by a package that actually lists proper dependencies. It is also one of the packages that required one of the above WebKit rebuilds in i686 form for RHEL/CentOS 7 x86_64.

If you have it installed, just remove it with:

yum remove webkitgtk.i686

The repository has been deleted; to install the new Skype provided version, just head to the following official link.

Big multimedia repository update (CUDA enablements, rebases, new software)

slaanesh 72 Comments

Merging of the Nvidia repository into Multimedia

The whole multimedia repository has been rebased with recent releases, and it now features FFmpeg 3.2 as the foundation. Most of the programs that suppport some Nvidia integration are now enabled and compiled with support for CUDA/NVENC/CUVID; leveraging the previous reorganization of CUDA 8 in the various subpackages.

This means that all the Nvidia packages are now included in the repository as well, so if you have an Nvidia card and you are interested in both repositories, you can just have the multimedia repository enabled. If you still just want the Nvidia stuff (as enabled in Fedora 25) then it’s still available as a separate repository; and that will not change.

Why all of this? Because I can’t keep them separated anymore. The Nvidia repository can exist on its own, but the multimedia one can’t, due to the dependencies and the constant rebases (also of main Fedora and CentOS/RHEL packages). You can use the Nvidia repository alone, if you just need that, or use the multimedia one if you need everything else.

The repository is now exposed also at this URL, and contains Delta RPM support:

https://negativo17.org/repos/multimedia

All repository files and configurations have been updated, so this means that in the future this would be the place where the metadata and repository information will be placed and any new installation will get the repository from there. If you are reading this blog post, you can switch now. I will add a negativo17-release package soon, along with a few mirrors; I’m sorting out the details now with the mirror owners.

FFmpeg and other CUDA enablements

To make proper use of the Nvidia hardware encode features (NVENC/CUVID) and CUDA kernel support (i.e. Blender GPU rendering) in the various programs you need the Nvidia driver installed (nvidia-driver-cuda), and for Nvidia Performance Primitives you require the CUDA driver and the NPP library package (cuda-npp).

This means that for most people NOT requiring CUDA support or not using an Nvidia video card, the following 2 packages will be installed anyway:

$ ls -alghs nvidia-driver-cuda-libs*.rpm cuda-npp*.rpm 
92M -rw-r--r-T. 1 mock 92M Nov 16 12:35 cuda-npp-8.0.44-6.fc25.x86_64.rpm
22M -rw-r--r-T. 1 mock 22M Nov 19 15:00 nvidia-driver-cuda-libs-375.20-1.fc25.x86_64.rpm

Both packages contain just libraries, and they will be on your system as much as other libraries for multimedia codecs you don’t actually need. Example, with most multimedia programs you will get Xvid libraries for opening Xvid files, even though the format is pretty much abandoned. Having them installed does not enable any unwanted feature in your system. Also, NPP libraries should decrease 50% in size in one of the next CUDA updates, being the monolithic version of the library being deprecated in favor of split functionality.

There are some patches being evaluated to make those libraries loadable at runtime, but they have not been merged yet and there’s no guarantee that they ever will. Also, they are available for FFmpeg but not for all the other programs where support has been enabled for; so depending on your installation, you might get them anyway.

As of today, from the Multimedia repository the following programs have been enabled with some Nvidia hardware enablement:

  • MPV (video decoding through CUVID)
  • FFmpeg (encoding through NVENC, decoding through CUVID and filtering through CUDA NPP)
  • Avidemux (encoding, through NVENC)
  • GStreamer (NVENC plugin)
  • Blender (GPU rendering)

VDPAU for decoding was already enabled where possible.
Of course anything that is using FFmpeg (like the GStreamer plugins) could theoretically benefit from the same enablements as in FFMpeg:

$ for i in encoders decoders filters; do
    echo $i:; ffmpeg -hide_banner -${i} | egrep -i "npp|cuvid|nvenc|cuda"
done
encoders:
 V..... h264_nvenc           NVIDIA NVENC H.264 encoder (codec h264)
 V..... nvenc                NVIDIA NVENC H.264 encoder (codec h264)
 V..... nvenc_h264           NVIDIA NVENC H.264 encoder (codec h264)
 V..... nvenc_hevc           NVIDIA NVENC hevc encoder (codec hevc)
 V..... hevc_nvenc           NVIDIA NVENC hevc encoder (codec hevc)
decoders:
 V..... h263_cuvid           Nvidia CUVID H263 decoder (codec h263)
 V..... h264_cuvid           Nvidia CUVID H264 decoder (codec h264)
 V..... hevc_cuvid           Nvidia CUVID HEVC decoder (codec hevc)
 V..... mjpeg_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MJPEG decoder (codec mjpeg)
 V..... mpeg1_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MPEG1VIDEO decoder (codec mpeg1video)
 V..... mpeg2_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MPEG2VIDEO decoder (codec mpeg2video)
 V..... mpeg4_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MPEG4 decoder (codec mpeg4)
 V..... vc1_cuvid            Nvidia CUVID VC1 decoder (codec vc1)
 V..... vp8_cuvid            Nvidia CUVID VP8 decoder (codec vp8)
 V..... vp9_cuvid            Nvidia CUVID VP9 decoder (codec vp9)
filters:
 ... hwupload_cuda     V->V       Upload a system memory frame to a CUDA device.
 ... scale_npp         V->V       NVIDIA Performance Primitives video scaling and format conversion

I think this will be much appreciated for you users out there that are already using CUDA for deep learning and FFMpeg to process data 🙂

Rebases: FFmpeg, HandBrake, VLC, OpenH264, WebP (CentOS/RHEL), MPV.

A note on Blender: Blender with CUDA support is still at 2.78 built with CUDA 7.5, and not 2.78a built with CUDA 8; so no Nvidia Pascal GPU support. I’m working on it.

GNOME Software integration

Most of the graphical software is now enabled in GNOME software for Fedora 25, meaning that you can search stuff with a keyword and that if you have the repository enabled it will just pop-up:

gnome-software-handbrake

gnome-software-makemkv

gnome-software-vlc

There is still some packages that need AppStream metadata, but that will come.

As usual, feedback, bugs and comments are welcome.

CUDA 8, cuDNN, Nvidia drivers and GNOME Software metadata

slaanesh 48 Comments

GNOME software integration

The Nvidia driver repository has been updated with AppStream metadata. From Fedora 25 onward, you will be able to search for Nvidia, CUDA, GeForce or Quadro to make the driver, control panel and other programs appear in the Gnome Software window.

As far as I know, this should be enabled by default on Fedora 25.

gnome-software-nvidia

Thanks to Richard Hughes for helping out with the metadata.

I require proper 16:10 aspect ratio pictures for both NSight and the Visual Profiler running on Fedora, so if you want to contribute just drop me an email or open an issue on the CUDA package on GitHub.

Changes to the Nvidia driver packaging

The Nvidia driver can now be installed without nvidia-settings (the control panel utility) as requested by Red Hat, in preparation for the Gnome software integration. This means the dependencies have been reversed, and that to install the driver and the control panel you need to install nvidia-settings or the driver and nvidia-settings:

dnf/yum -y install nvidia-settings kernel-devel

The libglvnd package has been updated to the latest snapshot and now features all the changes that have been introduced by Adam Jackson for the Mesa GLVND integration in Fedora 25. This means that while installing you will be prompted to install/upgrade smaller packages that contain a subset of the libglvnd libraries, this includes EGL support for the recently released beta drivers version 375.10. For anything lower than 375.10 (so Fedora 23-24 and CentOS/RHEL 6/7 at the moment of writing this) Nvidia’s last official note on EGL is:

“libEGL.so.1, while not a proper GLVND library, depends upon the GLVND infrastructure for proper functionality. Therefore, any driver package which aims to support NVIDIA EGL must provide the GLVND libraries […]”

So for now, in Fedora 23, 24 and CentOS/RHEL 6/7:

$ rpm -q --requires nvidia-driver-libs.x86_64 | grep libglvnd
libglvnd-gles(x86-64) >= 0.1.1
libglvnd-glx(x86-64) >= 0.1.1
libglvnd-opengl(x86-64) >= 0.1.1
$ rpm -q --conflicts nvidia-driver-libs.x86_64 | grep libglvnd
libglvnd-egl(x86-64) >= 0.1.1

And for Fedora 25:

$ rpm -q --requires nvidia-driver-libs.x86_64 | grep libglvnd
libglvnd-egl(x86-64) >= 0.2
libglvnd-gles(x86-64) >= 0.2
libglvnd-glx(x86-64) >= 0.2
libglvnd-opengl(x86-64) >= 0.2

Not a big deal. This accommodates the ongoing modularization in Mesa but still preserves the original EGL libraries from Nvidia. The upgrade should be transparent and you should not notice any difference except some smaller packages being installed.

vulkan_500px_june16Vulkan is now part of Fedora, so on supported Fedora releases, the Vulkan loader and libraries can be installed and you do not need to do anything to enable support in the drivers. CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux do not have Vulkan yet. I’m not sure if it’s worth installing it by default along with the drivers, though.

Let’s assume you have a freshly installed Fedora 25 system with a recent Nvidia GPU and you want to:

  • Install the driver for gaming
  • Play Vulkan enabled games
  • Want to be comfortable with the control panel
  • Play 32 bit games on a 64 bit system
  • Play 32 bit Vulkan games on a 64 bit system
$ sudo dnf install nvidia-settings kernel-devel dkms-nvidia vulkan.i686 nvidia-driver-libs.i686
Last metadata expiration check: 0:33:49 ago on Mon Oct 24 14:14:30 2016.
Dependencies resolved.
=====================================================================================
 Package            Arch   Version                             Repository       Size
=====================================================================================
Installing:
 dkms-nvidia        x86_64 2:375.10-1.fc25                     fedora-nvidia   6.4 M
 libglvnd           i686   1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia   103 k
 libglvnd           x86_64 1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia   105 k
 libglvnd-egl       i686   1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia    44 k
 libglvnd-egl       x86_64 1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia    42 k
 libglvnd-gles      i686   1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia    29 k
 libglvnd-gles      x86_64 1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia    28 k
 libglvnd-glx       i686   1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia   114 k
 libglvnd-glx       x86_64 1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia   110 k
 libglvnd-opengl    i686   1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia    39 k
 libglvnd-opengl    x86_64 1:0.2.999-4.20161025git28867bb.fc25 fedora-nvidia    38 k
 libva-vdpau-driver x86_64 0.7.4-14.fc24                       fedora           61 k
 libvdpau           i686   1.1.1-3.fc24                        fedora           35 k
 nvidia-driver      x86_64 2:375.10-3.fc25                     fedora-nvidia   3.1 M
 nvidia-driver-NVML x86_64 2:375.10-3.fc25                     fedora-nvidia   397 k
 nvidia-driver-libs i686   2:375.10-3.fc25                     fedora-nvidia    15 M
 nvidia-driver-libs x86_64 2:375.10-3.fc25                     fedora-nvidia    14 M
 nvidia-libXNVCtrl  x86_64 2:375.10-1.fc25                     fedora-nvidia    26 k
 nvidia-settings    x86_64 2:375.10-1.fc25                     fedora-nvidia   935 k
 vulkan             i686   1.0.30.0-1.fc25                     updates-testing 1.5 M
 vulkan-filesystem  noarch 1.0.30.0-1.fc25                     updates-testing 8.0 k

Transaction Summary
=====================================================================================
Install  21 Packages

Total download size: 42 M
Installed size: 178 M
Is this ok [y/N]:

Note that the requirement on kernel-devel is still required as otherwise the package kernel-debug-devel is pulled in automatically in place of the normal non-debug package. There is bug opened on dnf/libsolv for this.

Changes to CUDA packaging

The CUDA packages hosted on the Nvidia repository are split into multiple subpackages, based on the library. For each library, you have the corresponding devel subpackage with the headers, the unversioned library symlink and the static library. Here, they were divided in one libs, one big extra-libs, one static and one devel subpackage for everything. Since I’m planning to enable CUDA/NVCUVID encoding/decoding in FFmpeg (I’m actually waiting to the dynamic loader patches to land in the 3.2 branch before enabling that) there should be a way to install just what is required by those functions and not the whole CUDA toolkit set of libraries.

So now, all the libraries are split into subpackages, much like in the original Nvidia CUDA repository. This allows you to install and build software relying on specific components without the need to install all the CUDA toolkit just to satisfy a library dependency. With the new packaging organization, the original cuda-devel and cuda-extra-libs will pull in all the specific subpackages giving you the same situation you are accustomed to. Also, for the same reason, static libraries have been included in each respective devel subpackage.

Example, just with the basic tools:

$ sudo dnf install cuda
Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:20 ago on Sun Oct 23 13:11:01 2016.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package           Arch         Version               Repository           Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 cuda              x86_64       1:8.0.44-4.fc24       fedora-nvidia        95 M
 cuda-cufft        x86_64       1:8.0.44-4.fc24       fedora-nvidia        97 M
 cuda-curand       x86_64       1:8.0.44-4.fc24       fedora-nvidia        38 M
 cuda-libs         x86_64       1:8.0.44-4.fc24       fedora-nvidia       6.4 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  4 Packages

Total size: 236 M
Installed size: 469 M
Is this ok [y/N]:

The basic tools along with all the libraries (note that the NVML headers are included):

$ sudo dnf install cuda-devel
Last metadata expiration check: 0:10:00 ago on Sun Oct 23 13:11:01 2016.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package                 Arch       Version             Repository         Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 cuda                    x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      95 M
 cuda-cublas             x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      21 M
 cuda-cublas-devel       x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      38 M
 cuda-cudart             x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     131 k
 cuda-cudart-devel       x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     659 k
 cuda-cufft              x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      97 M
 cuda-cufft-devel        x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      73 M
 cuda-cupti              x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     1.2 M
 cuda-cupti-devel        x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     213 k
 cuda-curand             x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      38 M
 cuda-curand-devel       x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      60 M
 cuda-cusolver           x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      23 M
 cuda-cusolver-devel     x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     4.1 M
 cuda-cusparse           x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      23 M
 cuda-cusparse-devel     x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      23 M
 cuda-devel              x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     1.6 M
 cuda-libs               x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     6.4 M
 cuda-npp                x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      91 M
 cuda-npp-devel          x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      47 M
 cuda-nvgraph            x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     4.6 M
 cuda-nvgraph-devel      x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      12 k
 cuda-nvml-devel         x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      41 k
 cuda-nvrtc              x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia     6.6 M
 cuda-nvrtc-devel        x86_64     1:8.0.44-4.fc24     fedora-nvidia      16 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  24 Packages

Total size: 655 M
Installed size: 1.4 G
Is this ok [y/N]:

The nvidia-driver-NVML-devel package, which was including the NVML header (for libnvidia-ml.so) has now been made obsolete by the new headers, which are now part of CUDA 8. So the cuda-nvml-devel package will take care of that. Again, this is the same as in the Nvidia repository. Everything that was requiring the NVML header now refers to that package instead of the previous one. I will leave it for a few releases like that and then I will remove the Obsolete/Provides tags from the various SPEC files.

The header is also required for building the latest nvidia-settings from the 375.10 source, this has been taken into account making the CUDA package buildable on i686 but generating only the cuda-nvml-devel subpackage.

Extra stuff

In addition to the libraries bundled in the CUDA toolkit, also the cuDNN library for distributed neural networks is included in the repository.

As usual, you are welcome to open bugs / request stuff / comment on the GitHub repositories.

GStreamer plugins for CentOS/RHEL 7, MPV and Fedora 25 repositories

slaanesh 7 Comments

The Multimedia repository now provides GStreamer (1.0) plugins for Bad, Ugly, libAV and VA-API plugin bundles with all options enabled for CentOS/RHEL 7. As per the Fedora ones, these are split into the following GStreamer runtime packages:

  • gstreamer1-plugins-bad
  • gstreamer1-plugins-ugly
  • gstreamer1-plugins-vaapi
  • gstreamer1-plugins-libav
  • gstreamer1-plugins-bad-fluidsynth (pulls in the whole FluidSynth distribution)

They all have an Epoch of “1”, to avoid any upgrade issue. Like for FFMpeg, I’ve tried to enable all the supported plugins out of the box. The “bad” package actually obsoletes the “bad-free”, “bad-nonfree” and “openh264” Gstreamer plugin packages. As such, they play nicely when enabling OpenH264 support on Firefox.

Apart from this, 99% of the Fedora 25 packages are now available, Fedora 24 and Fedora 25 repositories now have MPV in them.

Next steps

Next steps: